In this conversational YouTube episode, Lou Carter (author and CEO of Best Practice Institute) and Dr. Julie Rosenberg (physician, drug‑development consultant, and author) discuss how individuals and organizations can navigate the transition back to the workplace amid the COVID‑19 pandemic while reducing anxiety. Dr. Julie emphasizes the importance of staying informed through credible sources (CDC, WHO, state health agencies), limiting exposure to potentially misleading media, and focusing on controllable health behaviors such as hand‑washing, mask‑wearing, exercise, and social distancing. Lou expands the conversation to the employer side, advocating for a democratic, employee‑centered approach to re‑entry: soliciting employee preferences, providing personal protective equipment, offering wellness coaching, and leveraging health‑screening technologies (infrared scanners, badge‑based health chips). They note that many companies, exemplified by Microsoft’s extended remote‑work policy, are allowing staff to remain at home until October, reflecting widespread discomfort with returning to physical offices. The hosts conclude with a call to action—encouraging listeners to reflect, control what they can, and explicitly ask for the resources they need to mitigate stress and anxiety during this period of change.
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Hey, and welcome to the Julie and Lou Show, moving back into the new. And, uh, today we're going to be talking about coming back into the workforce and reducing anxiety and what it's like to work from home, what it'll be like to go back into the workforce. I'm Lou Carter, author of In Great Company, uh, author of other books, and I'm CEO of Best Practice Institute. And back to you, Dr. Julie.
And I'm Dr. Julie Rosenberg. I'm a physician and drug development consultant. I'm also interested in helping people achieve their highest state of well-being despite circumstances and despite antecedent health. And I'm the author of two books and glad to be here with you today. So, Lou, should I start it out with anxiety on a personal level?
Absolutely, ready for you, Julie.
Well, we're in the midst of a global pandemic, as everyone knows, and without much change, you know, the incidence of COVID COVID-19 is on the rise in most countries, especially here in the US, and deaths continue to be on the rise. But yet, to avoid economic collapse, we're starting to reopen, we're starting to go back to work. And everything creates a fair amount of anxiety. So first and foremost, what can we do? Well, I think it's important as educated consumers to stay informed. But the amount of information we take in ought to be modulated. The other thing is where we get the source of our information should be modulated. Credible sources include the Center for Disease Control, the World Health Organization, and statewide reference organizations. The media is often rife with information and misinformation and conflicting information, so I would suggest that we not take everything in the media as true. The other thing is I think we should control what we can control. Continue washing our hands, exercising best health-related practices, continue to wear masks if we're going out to protect others from any potential disease that we have, and exercise social distancing. It's pretty clear that if we stay away from others as we transit best back to work to the best of our ability, that our experience is going to be better and our risk of getting ill will be less. So, Lou, with those few comments, let me turn it back to you for some tips about managing potential anxiety in the workforce.
It's essential. Everything you're saying is essential right now for personal well-being and moving back into the workforce. What we are doing now is really democratizing the process and saying, well, what do employees really want? What do they feel like they need when they move back into the workforce? Do they need to be given personal protective equipment? Do they need a wellness coach? What is it that will make them feel comfortable actually moving into the workforce? Are there some types of technologies that allow us to know the health and wellness of employees who are coming into the building? Could be infrared, it could be a chip that they bring into a card to scan themselves, so there's a lot of questions around how do we feel comfortable going back to work, and the other question really is within the survey that we're, we're finding is, how is it that people sort of work more productively at home or at work, right? Well, is that based on preference? Do we prefer to stay at home right now, or do we prefer to go back to work? Microsoft is allowing employees to stay at home until October, and many employees are opting to stay at home because they don't feel comfortable coming into the workplace. So these kinds of questions are essential, and we feel that democratizing and asking people what they feel is right for them, for their own personal safety, is the, the right way to, to go about the movement back on site.
Absolutely. And, you know, personal satisfaction and personal comfort obviously is going to lead to more professional satisfaction, more professional comfort, and probably a better engaged employee in the long run. So my final suggestion here is take Take this time to reflect as an opportunity. Take care of what you can control and ask for what you need, and that will help to abrogate both anxiety and stress.
Awesome last message. Ask for what you need. Choice is a big part of this, and your health is essential as well as for all of us and your families and everybody else out there. Dr. Julie, it's awesome to be with you here today. Moving into the new with Dr. Julianne Lu.
